Saturday, April 17, 2010

Happy Birthday Queen!!! (a day late now)

As I have epically been failing and updating my blog regularly, I have decided to make most of today a slew of various blog posts, still probably leaving out Paris, Senegal, and The Gambian adventures, as those will be easier to remember later, and some verrry interesting things have been happening in my everyday life.

And then somehow I managed to not finish writing or posting this allllll yesterday, though what did I do yesterday? I cooked amazing food...and went bartending! That's right, turning a new page in my book. It's not paid but it's really nice, I'll be doing it next Friday as well. Another bonus of volunteer bartending at Studenthuset (student house, but everyone goes there), anyways, you don't get to keep your tips, (well you're not supposed to), and you just put them up in this tip umbrella. So! this being said - when middle-aged guys sit next to the bar apparently to chat you up when you are making people drinks etc, I don't feel it necessary to stay there and chat longer or stay over there for any extra moment at all, because I don't even want a tip, it's not for me, hehehheehe...And also, it's just strange...but the two olderish men seemed happy enough sitting there. People are just weird. But interesting...Other than that, I enjoy having a pretend job. I don't think I speak enough Danish to get a real job yet, (however my Danish is improving SO MUCH, I spoke so much last night I am just falling in LOVE with it), anyways, working here is just so good! You meet so many people, you get free drinks the whole time, have an after party with tons of free food, and get free drinks when you're not even working (I have 9 left yay!), so yeah, sort of like money...in alcohol? But hey I'm a student, that's good enough! (sort of)

Interesting events from last night - So apparently people here don't take home food a lot for leftovers. Frugal me decided, hey, I'll take this giant half burger home, lunch for tomorrow, and meat! (meat is expensive so meat is AWESOME WHEN I GET TO HAVE IT, saying this I do try to have meat everyday still and probably mostly do...not today yet) But then, I am RIDICULED! By this Dane named Davey sitting next to me, 'oh you put your burger in your BAG, you take your BAG home, why do you do that!' Ahh I can mock Danish accents now by the way, it's so much fun :) So after saying 1. I am poor 2. I want to eat this later 3. It is delicious and look at that meat! I go about my business, chatting with other people, and then suddenly he's nudging me going 'I'm eating your BURGer, I took the BAG from the ground and now I am just EATing it, just wanted you to KNOw" and while I am sad, because there goes my food, there is not much I can do, and it's pretty messy therefore amusing to watch. After somewhat lamenting and pitying myself and my lost burger - oh by the way, the random capital letters are to try to put the strange Danish accent in there, but I'll probably just have to tell you in real life sometime - anyyywayys, then Davy cant FINISH the burger. Ohhhh, and DID I just learn how to insult people in Danish? And by learn I don't mean in class, I mean self taught/making Danish friends telling me if I'm doing it right...hehehe

So the things I end up saying are something like this ' Du er en mand, ikke?' "Er du en mand!" Er du en KVINDE?" Spiser det nå! and then in succession of pointing to the burger, his mouth, and his stomach "Mad. Spiser. Maven"

All of this translates roughly into, 'you are a man are you not? are you a man? are you a woman!? eat that now! ' food. eat. stomach." I can really do a lot of harm with my limited vocabulary and I loooove it. As he ended up getting drunkenly offended/sad at my ridiculing, he had to give up and say 'Ja, ja jeg er en kvinde' (I believe I then asked if he was a little girl, en lille piga, and he just looked down sadly, but then I saved it all by saying I was sorry for everything 'Undskyld for alt", and now we are friends :)

Basically, I LOVE DANISH. I just adore learning languages...I like to tell people they are human beings - Du er et menneske!" It's just amusing...there are so many things I like to say. When we were learning how to say 'do you have a __ I can borrow for a moment/ til the morning" and "do you have ___ I can have", everytime there was an option of saying borrow or have, I'd just ask to have it in the set up dialogs we use in class. 'Har du et Dankort jeg må få?' and then the person would have to say something like 'of course' or 'yes, here you go', when I just asked for a credit card of theirs to have...hehehe...the simple pleasures...

Unfortunately (desvarre is unfortunately I think), this is exactly how I learned Spanish, poor Sra Madden having to put up with me all the time! It's just...easier to learn when you make it funny. Though a lot of Danes will go 'what ... what did you say it like that for, no one says it like that Laura... such as when I say 'det var så latterligt lidt' for 'it was so ridiculously little' when someone says thanks to me - I like to say ridiculously, because people will say tak for something like, sheesh, you just say tak for everything, and I like to mix things up. Anyyyywayyyys...

Well not I don't really know what else happened at the bar. It was just awesome and nice. Met a girl from Georgia the state, Columbians, cool Dutch people, just so much friendliness! :) And in other news before I post this - I also desperately want to buy a bike! Everyone here just bikes so I'm going to go to an auction and try to get a crappy one for just a few hundred Kroner...It will just help me really get to know the city and ahh I like biking! Everyone here bikes!Oh yeah, and it was the Queens birthday yesterday so that was on all the channels, she is older, pretty, and waves a lot. And then Danish people sing songs in Danish and it sounds weird. hehe :)